A month after the popular jury in the case issued its verdict, those prosecuted for the lynching of the young man from A Coruña, Samuel Luiz, in July 2021, already know their sentence. The accumulated penalties that the group accused of beating the nurse to death must assume amounts to 74 years in prisonwhich will be distributed unequally depending on their participation in the violent aggression. The detail is included in the sentence signed by the judge of the Provincial Court of La Coruña, Elena Pastor, in accordance with the citizen verdict, which condemns Diego Montaña, Alejandro Freire alias ‘Yumba’, Kaio Amaral and Alejandro Míguez for their direct participation in crime. The amount is, in all cases, less than that proposed by the Prosecutor’s Office, but it is well above those proposed by the respective defenses. In the case of Diego Montaña, considered the leader of the gang and the instigator of the attack, the magistrate takes into account the aggravating circumstance of discrimination based on sexual orientationso it imposes 24 years in prisona sentence very close to the legal maximum -25 years-, which does not apply because the jury did not appreciate the aggravating factor of cruelty. In the sentence, Pastor explains that he considered the special seriousness of the event, the direct intervention of the accused from the beginning of the group attack to the end and “the extent of the harm caused and his subsequent attitude towards the victim and his familyshowing an absolute lack of empathy and cruelty that deserve greater criminal reproach.
In the case of Alejandro Freire ‘Yumba’, charges him with 20 years of confinement because there are no aggravating or mitigating circumstances. At this point, the magistrate warns “his status as a prominent participant” (he attacks Samuel from behind, knocks him down and throws him to the ground) and the intensity of his intervention (he delivers blows and prevents Samuel’s defense and escape) throughout the iter criminis, “almost from the very beginning to the end”, apostille. For Kaio Amaral, for his part, the sentence imposes a total of 20 and a half years – 17 years for the murder and three and a half years for the robbery with violence -, as it indicates that His intervention in the murder “does not reach the magnitude” of that of Diego and Freireaccording to the verdict of the Jury Court. And, finally, Alejandro Míguez was sentenced to 10 years in prison, since, since he is an accomplice to murder, he points out that it is appropriate to impose the lower sentence in degree which, in this case, covers a punitive period of 7 years and half to 15 years in prison.
When determining the sentences of the four accused, the magistrate took into account the special gravity of the incident, focusing not only on Samuel’s suffering during the six minutes that the attack lasted, but also on the extent of the harm caused. “In addition to the moral pain inherent in the loss of a son and brother, there are significant psychological sufferings for the victim’s parents,” the ruling stops to assess, which does not avoid the cruelty with which the accused treated the victim. “They left him lying in the middle of a roundabout, unconscious and with a bloody face,” describes the sentence about the last moments of the nurse, who, coinciding with the first night of opening of the nightlife, had gone out partying in La Coruña with a friend.
In her presentation, the presiding judge emphasizes that the victim, 24 years old, died as a result of a group attackstarted by Diego Montaña, who was accompanied by his then partner. She, Catherine Silva, was exonerated by the popular jury during the reading of the verdict, interpreting that she had not participated in the fatal beating. However, both the citizen jury and the magistrate understand that Montaña He interpreted that the victim was homosexualgoing so far as to tell him: “Stop recording, let’s see if I’m going to kill you, faggot.” This fact, according to the ruling, “triggered the totally aggressive reaction against Samuel, due to his animosity towards the homosexual sexual condition that he attributed to him.” Thus, it points out that, in a surprising and sudden manner, Diego Montaña “pounced on Samuel, hitting him with punches and kicks, mainly in the head and face areas». Alejandro Freire, for his part, “joined this action immediately, attacking Samuel from behind, tightly surrounding his neck with his arm.”
Regarding how the mob was formed, the sentence makes it clear. “In a matter of seconds, a large group of friends and acquaintances of the accused, who were in the vicinity, progressively joined the attack.” Kaio Amaral, according to the resolution, “joined the aggressor group, kicking Samuel at least once”. For his part, Alejandro Míguez stood at the initial point of the attack, without hitting Samuel. The Jury Court found it proven that, acting in unity of action while they surrounded him, some members of the group, including Diego and Yumba, beat the victim, while others, including Kaio and Míguez, They prevented their escape and made any type of help or defense difficult. that third parties could lend you. Samuel Luiz, according to the sentence, “was totally defenseless and helpless due to the large number of people who attacked and surrounded him.” Despite this, “At one point and with difficulty,” he managed to get up and tried to leave the placehelped by two Senegalese citizens, but they were chased for about 150 meters by the aggressor group. Finally, the story continues, always based on the facts proven during the plenary session, the victim fell to the ground collapsed and unconscious, at which point the attacking group and other people dispersed through various streets.
Introducing the three first prosecuted as co-authors and the fourth of themAlejandro Míguez, like his accomplice, the ruling of the Coruña Court draws attention to the “evident probative force” of those exposed in the courtroom. Going into detail, he emphasizes that the nine members of the popular jury observed “directly and repeatedly” the video from the traffic cameras in Plaza de Portugal, as well as the stills from the Andén pub and the 24-hour vending machine. Furthermore, it highlights that the forensic doctors concluded that the death was caused by multiple attacks, excluding “the existence of singular blows determining the lethal outcome”. Thus, according to the resolution, “they described more than thirty injuries, which could correspond to more than thirty blows,” emphasizing that each blow “amplified the effect of the previous one”so they concluded that they were all “necessary” to cause the death of the victim.
The magistrate states that the jurors considered that there was homicidal intent, in its form of eventual intent, considering it proven that the accused acted “representing the fatal outcome of Samuel’s death as probable, assuming the risk that their action entailed and accepting it.” Thus, it indicates that “they have attended in a rational and logical manner to the characteristics of the injuries inflicted on Samuel, the areas of the body affected and the repetition of the blows in areas of the body – head and face – in which it is completely foreseeable that they will result. “vital organs affected.”
Furthermore, he assures that the existence of homicidal intent is reinforced by “the deliberate selection of the head as the target of the attacks, the existence of a plurality of aggressors on a single victim, the enormous violence of the blows and the way in which they developed.” the group attack, the absolute indifference of the accused towards Samuel’s situation when he falls unconscious, already mortally wounded, without giving him help or seeking it from third parties, the abandonment by the accused of the place, dispersing calmly through the adjacent streets and the subsequent regrouping of the group in Europa Park and San Diego Park. Regarding the treachery, it points out that it is based on the fact that the victim, attacked in a surprising way by a group, lacked any possibility of defense, since the young man, who had no defensive wounds, “was attacked and attacked incessantly until “He fell to the ground unconscious.”
In terms of civil liability, Diego MM, Alejandro FG and Kaio ASC must jointly and severally compensate, with the subsidiary civil liability of Alejandro MR at a percentage of 30%, the parents and sister of the victim with a total of 303,284 euros . The presiding magistrate has also ordered to maintain the situation of provisional detention, communicated and without bail, of Diego MM, Alejandro FG and Kaio ASC. The sentence is not final, since an appeal can be filed before the TSXG.
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